Synagogue Council Condemns ‘blatant Anti-semitic’ of Polish Regime

March 22, 1968

NEW YORK (Mar. 21)

The Synagogue Council of America, speaking for the Conservative, Orthodox and Reform wings of Judaism in this country, accused the Polish regime today of “blatant anti-Semitism and of the exploitation of traditional hatred of Jews in some segments of the Polish population for their own internal purposes.”

The statement, made public by Rabbi Philip Rudin, president of the Council, declared that “no amount of slanderous anti-Zionist rhetoric can hide from the world the moral degradation of a regime that would invoke racial animosity, in a manner reminiscent of Nazi tactics, against a community of 20,000 Jews who represent the pathetic remnant of three million Polish Jews butchered by the Nazis. It called on the Polish leaders for “an immediate end to their outrageous campaign” and appealed to men of goodwill everywhere to support this demand.

The American Jewish Committee, which previously reported an unsatisfactory meeting with Polish Embassy officials in Washington, in a statement today referred to a speech by Wladyslaw Gomulka, head of the United Workers (Communist) Party in Poland on Tuesday, as “an apparent effort” to halt the current anti-Semitic campaign in Poland. The committee said it would continue to demand “cessation of anti-Semitic provocations.”

Hundreds of college students and others demonstrated Wednesday afternoon on Fifth Avenue, near the Polish Mission to the United Nations, demanding an end to the anti-Semitic campaign in Poland. The demonstration was organized by the North American Jewish Youth Council and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.